Thwei'kha Bhu'ja's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Thwei'kha Bhu'ja crouched on the ridge and counted the claw gouges on the pine trunk. Four deep lines, chest-high on a Yautja. The creature had passed here within the hour. Four of his clan-kin were dead by the same hand, and the first skull had been cleaned and set on a stone where his younger brother would find it. That was not a trophy dropped in flight. That was an invitation. He meant to answer it by taking the killer's head, but first he needed to know how the killer thought, and for that he needed the trapper woman alive. The wind shifted and carried the wrong smell up from the valley. Oiled resin, wet iron, something under it that made his mandibles twitch. He had tracked the beast north toward its den, expecting it to sleep off its last kill. Instead the trail bent back. It was moving toward the small pine cottage where the trapper woman lived. She was the only one who had seen the thing and lived. If it reached her first, he lost the only mouth that could describe its habits. A rustle behind him. He turned with his wrist blade half-drawn and stopped. A short green figure stood between two ferns, bare chested, a belt of small skulls at the waist, a stone club across the back. Skar'khan. The goblin had been trailing him since the creek. Beside the goblin sat a gray mechanical raccoon, eyes lit pale blue, one paw lifted toward the slope below. Mara Slatewhisk's machine. The trapper woman had sent it out to lead help home. "She's still inside," Skar'khan said. He pointed at the raccoon. "It came for me first. I came for you." Thwei'kha Bhu'ja did not trust the small ones, but he trusted the gouges on the tree and the distance to the cottage. He clicked once and moved. The raccoon ran ahead through the ferns, weaving a path he would not have chosen, faster than his own scouting. Skar'khan kept up at his heel. The trees thinned. He saw the steep shingle roof through the pines and, on the packed dirt before the door, a long black shape crouched low, tail curled, head tilting toward the shuttered window. He threw the spear before it heard him. The point drove through the ribbed carapace and pinned the creature to the door frame. It shrieked, thrashed, tore itself half loose, and fled into the trees dragging a thick rope of pale blood. The door opened a hand's width. A small furred face looked out, then a woman's boot. The trapper woman was alive. Thwei'kha Bhu'ja stood in the yard with an empty hand and a wounded blood trail leading back toward the den. He had saved his witness. He had also told the thing exactly who was hunting it.